‘I don’t want to live alone’: co-living, community and affordable housing

Emily MacLaurin, 80, stands by a communal pizza oven at her home at Narara Ecovillage near Gosford in NSW. ‘I have faced the prospect of living [alone] like my mother for 30 years … I don’t want to live like that,’ she says. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Almost two decades ago, Lyndall Parris had her big idea.

“Two of my friends’ husbands died, leaving them to continue bringing up their two teenagers alone. I just started thinking: this is crazy. I can’t help them much, they’re living in different places. If we were living together in a village, wouldn’t it be easier?” she recalls.